Martin Duenas

Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance and participant of the Florentine style. He was the son of Mariano Filipepi, a tanner. Born in Florence around 1445, his first master was a goldsmith named Sandro, it was under his guidance that Botticelli first showed and incredible talent for painting and thus his family decided that instead of becoming a goldsmith, he should improve his skills. At the age of sixteen, he served as apprentice to Fra Filippo Lippi, from who he learned to include the effects of transparency and perspective to his paintings. In 1470, he already had his own workshop where he developed his own personal style. A fabulous management of lines, a sense of melancholy and the incorporation of Neo-Platonism characterized Botticelli’s artistic style through out his whole career, which brought him recognition and fame. Like many other artists, Botticelli worked for the Medici Family, for whom he painted portraits and other pieces of art such as the “Adoration of the Magi”. Sandro Botticelli’s paintings during the Early Renaissance and humanist period were, indeed, significant as he introduced new concepts and ideas to the movement.

Botticelli lived during the transition from the Early Renaissance to the High Renaissance period. Artists like Brunelleschi who painted the dome of Florence Cathedral, Donatello with the sculpture of David or Michelangelo were the perfect examples for young artist like Botticelli who wanted to follow their techniques as well as bring in new ideas. During the Early Renaissance artists wanted to break with the established conventions of the Byzantine art and renovate the world of art with the human figure as the main pillar: “Throughout the 15th century, artists stud...

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...enus, in the middle, represents the “Humanitas” (the benevolence), which protects men”. This symbolism of “humanitas” represents the ideals of humanism such as positivity, harmony, and confidence in his abilities. A peculiarity of the paintings might be that it is interconnected with The Birth of Venus. In the first one, Venus is coming to earth from a shell and the world is attentively waiting for her. In Primavera, Venus is a full-grown woman and is already in charge of world nature. In addition, in The Birth of Venus the trees have not already produced fruits but in Primavera, oranges and flowers occupy the background. Both these differences represent the time passing, a recurrent theme of humanist artists. Primavera was significant during the early Renaissance movement as it portrayed the style of the Neo-Platonism that Sandro Botticelli introduced in Florence.